October 10, 2001
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—The Amati Quartet opens the 2001-02 Music at Amherst Series on Friday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall at Amherst College. The Swiss string quartet will perform Schubert’s “Quartettsatz,” Janacek’s “Intimate Letters” quartet and Dvorak’s “American” Quartet Op. 96.

The Amati Quartet, which includes Willy Zimmermann, Katarzyna Nawrotek, Nicolas Corti and Claudius Hermann, was formed in 1981 in Switzerland. Shortly thereafter the quartet received numerous prestigious awards, among them the Premier Grand Prix of the International Competition of Evian in 1982, the Arts Prize of the City of Zurich in 1983 and the First Prize of the Karl Klinger Competition in Munich in 1986. Besides performing the classical and romantic repertoire, the quartet gives special attention to the music of the 20th century. They have been heard in major concert halls throughout Europe, as well as in the United States, mostly recently in a highly-claimed performance at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York.

The Amati Quartet has performed with the Alban Berg Quartet and the Amadeus Quartet. Krysztian Zimerman, Kurt Widmer, Bruno Giuranna, Karl Engel, Bruno Canino and Walter Levin, first violinist of the LaSalle Quartet, have been among its collaborators.

The New York Times wrote that a 1999 concert at the Frick Museum was “a memorably passionate, daring yet precisely achieved performance.” Die Berliner Morgenpost calls the Amati "without question a first-rate quartet. It makes music with emotional decisiveness and passionate energy, and above all it strives to remain true to the works, instead of bending the works to fit it."” Admission to the concert is $20, senior citizens $16, and students $5. Tickets may be reserved by calling 413/542-2195 on weekday mornings. The Amherst College Concert Office has a Website at http://www.amherst.edu/~concerts/.